The Nader effect: Could Liz May win the election for Stephen Harper?

This summer, as we lounge on the dock at the cottage, let’s let our minds wander fleetingly back to federal politics and have some fun playing a “what if” game. What if the Green Party helps the Conservatives win a majority on Oct. 19?

No, I haven’t been out in the sun too long. Yes, it’s a possibility. I’ll explain in a moment.

First, let me explain how the game is played. Historians and poli-sci profs use “what if” scenarios as a teaching tool to show students that the future is not written in the stars. Small things sometimes have unanticipated and oversized consequences.

For instance, what if Hitler had the talent to pass the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1907? Would the Holocaust and the Second World War have been avoided? Would Sotheby’s today be auctioning off delicate watercolours by Herr Hitler?

What if, on that night in 1759, Wolfe’s British invasion force had been unable to scale the cliffs near the Plains of Abraham, thus allowing Montcalm’s French troops to successfully defend the fortress city of Quebec? The map of North America would look very different today.

Al Gore’s recent visit to Toronto to speak at a climate change conference got me thinking about this. Gore always gets a laugh when he introduces himself as “the man who used to be the next president of the United States” — but he would have won the 2000 election had it not been for a twist of fate.

Ralph Nader’s quixotic run as the Greens’ third-party presidential candidate hurt Gore and the Democrats. Nader knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of winning. Nevertheless, the consumer crusader and environmental activist ramped up his campaign in the final week and focused on Florida, a must-win state for Gore and for Republican candidate George W. Bush.

Nader siphoned off 2.74 per cent of the popular vote nationally. His 97,000 votes in the extremely tight Florida race proved to be critical to Bush’s win. Bush took Florida by less than 600 votes and thus secured a majority in the electoral college.

Tory strategists look at recent opinion polls glumly and hunt for any sliver of hope. This could be it. If ISIS terror scares, baby bonus cheques and a flood of infrastructure grants in key ridings this summer can’t save Harper, maybe Elizabeth May can.

Many on the left have never forgiven Nader. They argue that, absent a Nader candidacy and a juiced-up final push by the Greens in Florida, those 97,000 votes would have broken in favour of Gore, perhaps by a margin of two-to-one, denying Bush the White House. At this point in the narrative American lefties sigh deeply, mutter “the rest is history” and grumble something about the tragic Bush legacy.

You don’t have to wait until election day to play “what if”. What if the anti-Harper vote splits almost evenly between Liberals and New Democrats on Oct. 19? And what if Elizabeth May’s Green Party takes eight per cent of the popular vote — as the Greens came close to doing in the 2008 election, their high-water mark? And what if the Conservatives’ core vote turns out and apathetic young millennials stay home? At the moment, none of these what-ifs is too far-fetched to be considered.

In this scenario, with our terribly broken and antiquated first-past-the-post voting system, the Tories might win a plurality in enough ridings to score a slim majority of seats the House.

Tory strategists look at recent opinion polls glumly and hunt for any sliver of hope. This could be it. If ISIS terror scares, baby bonus cheques and a flood of infrastructure grants in key ridings this summer can’t save Harper, maybe Elizabeth May can.

Does the Green Party leader really want to be the spoiler for the Stop Harper forces? No f…in’ way, as she might say. May believes stopping Harper is imperative. From her perspective, a Liberal minority government would be dandy. A Liberal-NDP-Green coalition, with May getting the environment portfolio, would send her over the moon.

Even if she runs a stellar campaign, May has no chance of forming a government and her chances of becoming the Official Opposition leader aren’t much better. Nevertheless, the Greens say they intend to run candidates in every riding — and good for them. They’re giving voters another option, a chance to express themselves clearly on environmental issues. Or maybe some voters will cast ballots for Green candidates to send a sharp message to organizers of leaders’ debates who have cynically cut May out of the action.

Now, back to our “what if” game and the lightning round. What will May do on the day before the election if all signs indicate the scenario we’ve sketched out here is about to come to pass and a Harper majority seems possible? Might she call on her supporters to vote Liberal in ridings with tight three-way Tory, Liberal and NDP races? She’s played footsie with Liberals before.

You can bet that if Harper returns with a slim majority, and the Green vote played any part in it, they won’t serve champagne at Green Party headquarters on election night. They’ll pass around the Kool-Aid.

Jeff Sallot is one of Canada’s most experienced and respected political writers. A graduate of the Kent State University journalism school, he shared a Pulitzer Prize with colleagues at The Akron Beacon-Journal for his eyewitness coverage of the massacre of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war demonstration. He worked for The Globe and Mail for more than three decades, much of the time as a political journalist based in Ottawa. He started his career in political journalism at The Toronto Star when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister. He taught journalism at Carleton University for seven years until he retired in 2014.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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